Everybody wants to be the hero
by AgentOfAngst
Summary: Pepper finds it hard enough living her day to day life without Tony. Now her daughter wants to be one of a multitude of little Iron Mans out on Halloween night and it's almost too much to bear. Day 5 of my 7 days of Halloween challenge!


**I've been meaning to write stories about Morgan since Endgame came out, though this is more Pepper's story, I love this little girl and I'm sure she has a great dynamic with a bunch of the Avengers. She's gotten a mention in Boys Support Boys and The Chair, but I hope to do more with her in the future. **

**I can't believe the challenge is almost over! This has been so much fun this year and I love putting my favorite characters in Halloween situations. Of course, some characters are more fit for Halloween situations. The last two are Gravity Falls and Over the Garden Wall, the most Halloween stories of all! Enjoy!**

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"Morgan, have you decided what you want to be for Halloween?" Pepper had been asking her daughter this question since early September. She'd been getting the same answer since late July.

"I wanna be daddy!" She meant, of course, Iron Man. She wanted to be a hero. She had always wanted to be a hero. Ever since she understood what a hero was she wanted to be a hero. The Morgan and Morgan "Justice never sleeps!" commercial had kept Morgan up and out of bed for weeks, convinced that commercial was made for her. She was Morgan, she was justice, and justice never sleeps! It had been exhausting, taking care of two heroes. Now she had only one. Well, there was Peter, who needed the occasional lecture, but for the most part, it was just her and Morgan now. And Morgan wanted to be just like daddy, and daddy was dead. So, when Morgan's costume request came, Pepper did everything in her power to fill Morgan's head with other ideas.

"What about a princess, or a pilot, or a doctor?"

"No, I wanna be daddy." Morgan smiled brightly at her mother, a cheerful, mischievous smile like this was a game that they were playing instead of Pepper's desperate attempt to save her daughter from shouldering the weight of the universe. Pepper couldn't lose her daughter to the same fate Tony had faced. Still, Halloween was fast approaching, and Morgan's answer was unchanging. She wanted to be daddy. She wanted to be a hero.

Why anyone would want to be Tony Stark was beyond her. He'd never been happy, not until Morgan was born. He never rested. He blamed himself for everything that ever happened and forced that blame on other people so that they could feel a fraction of what he felt all the time. It sounded fun to be a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. It sounded like the American dream. But no one could be Tony, not Pepper, not Peter, not Morgan, not even Tony could fully be Tony. And no one should be Tony. It took too much of a toll on someone, to be responsible for everything.

Pepper just wanted Morgan to be responsible for keeping her room tidy and coloring with reckless abandon. Howard Stark had molded Tony into the man he was, who felt responsible for everything and partied like he didn't care at all. They had both agreed that they didn't want Morgan to grow up like that. They wanted their little girl to just be a little girl. To run around and play pretend. However, it seemed that Tony had accidentally molded her into a hero. When she ran around and played pretend she pretended to be a hero. She saved her toys from increasingly dramatic peril, inventing scenarios that would have made her daddy proud.

"Are you sure you don't want to be a fairy, or a puppy, or a firefighter? There are other types of heroes, Morgan." Safer types of heroes!

"Maybe next year," Morgan said with a smile. Halloween was tomorrow, so that was the final word. Pepper began to assemble the costume, kissing Morgan's head.

"Okay, you can dress up like daddy." Tomorrow wasn't going to be easy. Morgan threw her arms around her, grinning from ear to ear. And that helped a little.

Morgan was an adorable Iron Man. One of the millions out that night, though surely the cutest. Pepper trailed behind, trying to keep it together, though everywhere she saw reminders of what she had lost. What they had lost. She remembered Tony when she woke up in the bed they had shared, walked through the house they had chosen, played with the daughter they had given life to. There were already so many reminders, so many footsteps she had to follow in, so many obligations she had to tend to, so much Tony in the world just beyond her reach. And now, as her daughter gathered candy, there were even more Tonys to remind her. It was hard not to cry as each little Iron Man ran through the night. Tony would act like he loved all the attention, all the imitation. He would not love it. He would be proud of their own little hero, though. Morgan was going to do so much good in the world. Peter was going to do so much good in the world. Pepper was going to do so much good in the world. He saw good in others that he was incapable of seeing in himself. He wouldn't want so many people trying to be just like him. He wanted people to be better than that.

Morgan was thrilled with the bag full of candy she came home with, eagerly showing off each candy to Pepper, who subsequently checked for tampered with sweets. After the militant candy check, she sent Morgan off to bed and finally broke down in her own bed. She cried into the pillow, it just kept getting harder. It hurt too much to constantly be reminded. She knew she wasn't the only one to feel like this, but no one could take that hurt away. But when Morgan crawled into Pepper's bed a while later, so that Pepper wouldn't wake up alone, that helped a little.


End file.
